Ip_man: I expected a bit more after all those fancy trailers but the story was quite weak and resembling in some parts 'wrath of khan' - the special effects are the best thing going for this movie and the 3D was well made for a change.
Unfortunately the actors who play kirk and spock are lacking the power and charisma of shatner and nimoy and even benedict cumberbatch can't really save this movie due to the lack of background story that his character needed and didn't get here.
All together not a bad movie,the first was slightly better and more original but nothing memorable such as previous entries like the excellent 'first contact'

First of all, I like JJ Abrams as a director. His visual style, fluidity of camerawork, choreography of action scenes, and pacing are all excellent, imo. He does a great job with this film. It's just too bad he had a SHITTY SCRIPT to work with here.

So they bring the most iconic Trek villian back to UNDERUSE him in a convoluted plot that makes no sense. It's a shame that he was used in such a terrible way. Cumberbatch was good, but Khan was terrible in this, if that makes any sense. And if these films are related to the prior films/series, why is Khan now of a different ethnicity? And why is Carol Marcus speaking the Queen's English, when she's a crusty American broad in WRATH OF KHAN?

One of the things I liked about the 2009 film was the little nods to the original series. The sound fx, for example, and the Kobayashi Maru scene. It was great to see something referenced from an earlier adventure, it was very well-done, and didn't feel contrived for the sake of just "throwing it in there." In this film, though, there are so many references to previous films and series episodes that it feels very contrived and pandering to the fans. I guarantee in the last four years, Lindelof/Orci/Kurtzman read all the fan blogs, boards, etc. and saw how much everyone loved the Kobayashi Maru scene and said, "Well, we will give them a lot more of that!" It doesn't work here. It feels forced and not organic to the story. The throwaway line about the "Mudd Incident", Kirk/Spock death scene, Spock yelling "Khan!", Tribbles--it was all pointless fan service that was done poorly. They were never going to top THE WRATH OF KHAN in a lot of fans eyes, so why repeat iconic scenes from that film that are inferior in every way. It reminds me of BACK TO THE FUTURE 2, when they go back to 1955 again, and the audience sees events from the first film, but this time trampled on, rehashed, and unappealing.

They even reference the last film a lot, which is baffling. Kirk landing on the Romulan platform, how Kirk met Pike in a bar, Vulcan destroyed, etc. And the collect-call to Old Spock was fucking stupid. DUMB.

The Uhura/Spock scenes are bad. The pit-stop on Kronos is pointless, other than(once again) for fan service in somehow getting a Klingon in your goddamn Star Trek film. Peter Weller sucks in this. And was that the dad from FRIDAY as a Starfleet captain?

All around, this film is terribly written and makes no sense. It is a marvel to look at, though, and JJ Abrams does an excellent job directing an awful script. I'm sure Kathleen Kennedy got wind of how gorgeously shot this film was from ILM in post-production. It looks like a STAR WARS film. He is the perfect director for STAR WARS EPISODE VII, and will hit a homerun. I'm just glad he will be working with new screenwriters for that, and not these stale crackers that wrote INTO DARKNESS.